1. Field Of The Invention
The invention herein pertains to the manufacture of door assemblies and particularly to the manufacture of assemblies having pre-hung doors hingedly joined to the frame. A releasable, disposable retainer is provided to maintain the door within the frame during shipment and installation in a wall opening afterwhich the retainer is removed and handle hardware is incorporated.
2. Description Of The Prior Art And Objectives Of The Invention
Pre-hung door assemblies are conventionally manufactured and distributed by building product suppliers as an expedient and convenience to carpenters and workers that install doors into "rough" wall openings. It is common activity in the building trade to purchase pre-hung, hinged door assemblies which can be quickly installed in wall openings during building and remodeling. To best maintain the pre-hung doors within the frames, manufacturers usually drive nails through the frame into the edge of the door. These nails are later removed prior to door installation. Nails or comparable fasteners mar the door edge and frame and care must be taken not to further damage the door during removal of the nails. In recent years various devices have been conceived to solve this problem such as the strap mechanism as set forth in U.S. Pat. No. 4,483,101. This device fits within the hardware bore of the door and wraps around the frame. The strap can later be cut and covered with a door casing. Other attempts at providing a temporary retainer can also be found such as set forth in Rogers, et al. U.S. Pat. No. Des. 319,007.
Also, pre-hung door assemblies are conventionally used in most new and remodeling constructions and include a frame of either a one or two piece configuration into which a door is pre-hung by hinges. Trim casing is applied to one side of one piece jambs and two sides of a two piece jamb. During fabrication, nails are usually driven through the back of the lockside jamb and into the edge of the door in order to hold the assembly together during shipment. Once the assembly is to be installed in a rough wall opening, the nails holding the lockside jamb to the door must be removed. The action of removing the nails allows the lock jamb and casing to swing freely relative to the door and the door usually falls slightly downward from the head jamb. This results in a difficult to install plumb and square door assembly and possibly poorly aligned miter joints on the door casing. A need exists for an improved means by which the original fabricator of the pre-hung door assembly can insure an assembly that will remain square and plumb until installed at the job site.
Each of the prior art attempts have provided some benefits over conventional nails, however these devices and others often require a great amount of time and work to apply and remove. Therefore, it is one objective of the present invention to provide a pre-hung door retaining device which will not interfere with the installation of the door yet which can be easily applied or removed while on one side of the door.
It is still another objective of the present invention to provide a pre-hung door retaining device which is inexpensive to produce and which can be easily and conveniently installed by relatively unskilled workers.
It is yet another objective of the present invention to provide a pre-hung door retaining device which will allow a single carpenter to install a pre-hung door and easily remove the retaining device while working from one side.
Various other objectives and advantages of the present invention become apparent to those skilled in the art as a more detailed description is presented below.